The competing values framework for management training and development: A tool for understanding complex issues and tasks

Abstract

The Competing Values Framework (CVF) can be an effective tool in a business setting for management training and development. Ford Motor Company, in partnership with the University of Michigan, has developed learning activities for management training and development programs utilizing the CVF as a common construct for examining different complex issues and processes. This article describes six such activities and gives examples of associated outcomes. The context of application of the activities ranges from an analysis of corporate culture shifts to individual management performance feedback. The activities demonstrate the strength of the CVF as both a holistic tool requiring consideration of the dilemmas and paradoxes inherent in today's business environment and as a means for gaining a manageable perspective of complex situations. The CVF is shown not to be prescriptive but rather as descriptive in a manner that allows sense-making in today's chaotic and continuously changing environment. The activities also illustrate effective learning processes for engaging a mixture of participants from many different functional areas of the company in a common experience which then requires them to define their own conclusions and deivlop personal action plans applicable to their specific job responsibility. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.